II. Some Special Aspects of Scientific Agriculture.
Intensive Farming and Conservation of Fertility
The opening of the rich prairie lands to cultivation, with the marvels of extensive agriculture, is a wonderful story. Our last chapter suggested it in outline. But intensive farming has its own triumphs, though they may be less spectacular. There is something that wins our respect in the careful, thorough methods of European agriculture, by which whole nations are able to make a living on tiny farms by intensive farming. Tilling every little scrap of ground, even roadside and dooryard, and guarding the soil fertility as the precious business capital of the family, it is wonderful how few square rods can be made to sustain a large family.
Frugality is not attractive to Americans, especially the European type which often means peasant farming, and a low scale of living. We are discovering, however, the vast possibilities of farm economy and intensive cultivation. Professor Carver says, “Where land is cheap and labor dear, wasteful and extensive farming is natural, and it is useless to preach against it.... We always tend to waste that which is cheap and economize that which is dear. The condition of this country in all the preceding periods dictated the wasteful use of land and the economic use of labor, as shown by the unprecedented development of agricultural machinery. But as land becomes dearer, relatively to labor, as it inevitably will, the tendency will be equally inevitable toward more intensive agriculture, that is, toward a system which produces more per acre. This will follow through the normal working of economic laws, as surely as water will flow down hill.”
The Stockman-Farmer Pub. Co.
A modern Fruit and Truck Farm in high state of fertility.
It is wonderful what can be accomplished by intensive cultivation. If the old New England orchards were given as thorough care and treatment as the scientifically tended and doctored apple trees of Oregon, the results would surprise the oldest citizen! Conserving moisture and keeping the soil clean from weeds is worth all the painstaking care it requires. The renovation of the soil by regular fertilizing is a lesson the wasteful West is slowly learning, coupled with scientific schemes of crop rotation to conserve the soil’s quality. Farmers are astonishingly slow to adopt these methods, however, thinking that they know best the needs of their own soil. The North Dakota experiment station is inducing farmers to adopt their advice as to seed selection and crop rotation with the promise to set aside five acres for experimentation in accordance with the advice given. This is extremely wise policy. Doubtless, if directions are faithfully followed, the contrast with the rest of the farm will be highly favorable to the five-acre lot and agricultural progress will win out.
Achievements in Scientific Breeding
In the earlier pages of this chapter we have already alluded to this fascinating subject as an illustration of modern efficiency in country life. Four years ago Assistant Secretary Hays of the Department of Agriculture asserted that scientific breeding of better stock and plant life was netting this country a billion dollars a year, of the total agricultural production of seven and a half billions in 1907.[22] In 1910 the total reached about nine billions and it is probable that scientific agriculture was the main cause of the great increase rather than additional acreage.